'I Love You Ronnie' by Nancy Reagan

Nancy Reagan writes about 'a truly long, long goodbye'

Published 5:30 am, Friday, September 8, 2000

NEW YORK (AP) -- Nancy Reagan says the "extraordinary life" she's led with former President Reagan, who suffers from Alzheimer's disease, makes it hard to cope with the progression of his illness. She also believes the condition accelerated after he fell off a horse and injured his head in 1989.

Mrs. Reagan's comments appear in the final section of I Love You, Ronnie, a collection of romantic letters written by Ronald Reagan to Nancy, whom he married in 1952. Published by Random House, the book went on sale Thursday.

Reagan, now 89, has rarely appeared in public since announcing in 1994 that he had Alzheimer's, the degenerative brain disease that afflicts 4 million Americans. Mrs. Reagan calls Alzheimer's "a truly long, long goodbye."

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"You know that it's a progressive disease and that there's no place to go but down, no light at the end of the tunnel. You get tired and frustrated, because you have no control and you feel helpless," she writes.

"We've had an extraordinary life but the other side of the coin is that it makes it harder. There are so many memories that I can no longer share, which makes it very difficult. When it comes right down to it, you're in it alone. Each day is different, and you get up, put one foot in front of the other, and go -- and love; just love."

Until he was diagnosed in 1994, there were no symptoms of Alzheimer's, Mrs. Reagan says. But she does look back to the riding accident her husband had in 1989, a few months after he left office.

While vacationing at a ranch in Mexico, the former president was thrown from his horse and suffered a concussion and a subdural hematoma.

"I've always had the feeling that the severe blow to his head in 1989 hastened the onset of Ronnie's Alzheimer's. The doctors think so, too," she writes.

While the book is primarily about the Reagans' marriage, Nancy Reagan does refer to the Iran-Contra scandal, which shadowed much of her husband's second term as president.

The secret scheme to divert money to anti-government rebels in Nicaragua led to televised congressional hearings.

White House aide Oliver North and several others were indicted on charges related to the scandal and White House Chief of Staff Donald Regan was forced to resign.

"People who were supposedly under his command were off doing things he knew nothing about, and no one ever saw fit to tell him. He was badly served by the people who were supposed to aid and advise him," Mrs. Reagan writes.

In 1994, Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh concluded President Reagan acquiesced in a cover-up of Iran-Contra and that impeachment "certainly should have been considered." At the time, Reagan called Walsh's report a "vehicle for baseless accusations that he could never have proven in court."